Jack's Mannequin

Here is an end of our Spotify tour playlist. Special thanks to musicandreviews.com best of list for a handful of these gems as well as some close friends for opening up their libraries and my mind.

Congratulations to our dear friends Lady Danville on their new video for "Better Side". Love this!
-A

I just finished reading Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Self Reliance". It came right in time. Do you ever feel fated towards a piece of art or literature? Years ago I carried with me a similar feeling for the Beach Boys album "Pet Sounds". For weeks there was a nagging, back-of- the-mind notion that I was meant to fall in love with the record so many had lauded as one of popular music's finest. Eventually the nagging became urgency. I listened once and wasn't sure where I stood; I listened twice and I was more sure. Eventually, I stopped listening and thats when I heard it. It wasn't an album it was a mantra. For three months now I have carried Emerson's manifesto in my backpack. It has traveled with me to 6 countries on 3 different continents. Like so much of my favorite literature it was gifted to me by the same wise cousin who years ago blew my world apart when he handed me a copy of Charles Bukowski's "Post Office". His only advice was to wait until I could read it in one sitting. Several times now I have heard the call and cracked the spine only to be distracted or disengage before the words took hold. Like Brian Wilson's masterpiece so many years ago it was becoming apart of me via suggestion long before I could fully commit to it. Today I woke with the heaviness of an uncertain future and made my way to a coffee shop in the lobby of my Sydney hotel. I brought my computer, my journal and my copy of "Self Reliance". With time on my side and that familiar sense of urgency I first waded and finally dove into the perfection of the text. This was not a book it was a call to arms. Like so many great pieces of art once you kneel at the alter you are forever changed. The title itself is a simple window into the more complex philosophy mapped out in it's short but robust 37 pages. I wouldn't dare paraphrase but rather suggest that when it is time, let this book find you. When you find yourself searching for the strength to grow outside your situation, however ideal or horrifying it may be, read this book. When you find yourself adopting the opinions of those surrounding you rather than waking each day with the joy and dare I say burden of exploring and exposing that which is authentically you, read this book. We live in a world where the strongest survive; where those who are unafraid to speak their personal truth end up writing ours for us. Simply put, a life lived in the shadow of fear is a life wasted. Emerson confirmed it for me this morning over a cup of coffee and a side of sourdough toast. Where I am going from here is a mystery but it is a mystery I am no longer afraid of. Nothing can be taken from a person who wishes to acquire nothing but the simple joy of knowing where they stand and why.


"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." R.W. Emerson


-A